


Like a Fever

by Venturous



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, M/M, POV First Person, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-08
Updated: 2011-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venturous/pseuds/Venturous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dining out proves extra challenging for Sherlock this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Fever

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: I am not sure I am qualified to write Sherlock inner monologue, but I follow the Muse.  
>  **inspired by this Song:** [Underworld: Grace ](http://venturous1.fithfath.com/05_Grace.mp3)

_Light up the darkness  
I'm violently in love  
The waitress smiles  
The music's too loud  
My body hurts_  
  
Why did we come to this restaurant? I cant stand the din in here. How could anyone hold a conversation. This was a mistake. My head is splitting.

“John, can’t you hurry up and eat?”

He looks up at me with that face, the quizzical, bemused, come-hither, what-now-Sherlock face. I can't stand it. I feel like I might explode.

“Can I get you something, sir?”

I am startled out of my contemplation of John by the annoying server. She just won’t take no for an answer.

“Fine!” I wave my hand imperiously. “Bring a bottle of _Huet Cuvée Constance_ and the assiette de fromage, sil vous plait.”

This causes her to scurry away. I forgot to ask her to turn down the awful noise.

This chair is so uncomfortable. it must have been designed for dwarves. If I put my feet on the floor my knees would raise the table, so I stretch out, and quite by accident brush John’s foot with my own. He looks up again, having returned to his steak frites.

He raises an eyebrow and smirks. One eyebrow, a tiny lift of the epicranius and I am dizzy again. This is absurd, I feel like I’m at sea, like the ground is not stable. As if some great elevator inside of me was plummeting, no rising, too fast. So I grip the table.

“Are you playing footsie with me?” he looks incredulous.

Get a grip, Holmes. I recover some composure, pretending to examine the salt shaker. “Hmmm? what? no of course not!”  But I maneuver my foot to the inside of his, and begin to insert the toe of my shoe under the hem of his trousers.  It takes effort not to smirk.

He raises both eyebrows now, face tilted down, pretending to glower at me through his eyelashes.

John Watson has eyelashes! They are golden brown, like the rest of him. At least the rest of him that I have catalogued so far.

Contemplating John’s other body hair is an absorbing topic, so I am irritated by the arrival of the sommelier with the wine, and the fussy waitress with the cheese plate. At least it’s tiny portions of interesting substances, and an attractive array of fruit.

Why do people consume bovine glandular exudate in the first place, much less after letting it moulder in a cave? Still, I can see the appeal of Roquefort. Especially with this divine Vouvray.

 _Light up the dark  
Light up the dark  
I'm violently in love  
The music's loud  
The music's loud  
The music's too loud_

We walk through the city, and it’s an incredibly fragrant summer night. I don’t have my coat and scarf to comfort me, and loud noises blare from clubs and passing cars. But the colours of the sky and the lights and the people are a kaleidoscope, and that gives me something to focus on other than John John John.

He’s telling me about a case that’s been in the news, a boring little affair. I don’t want him to feel dismissed, so I won’t tell him that they are after the wrong suspect. The victim’s younger son is the culprit. It’s nothing I really care about, but John has taken an interest. He’s flexing his deduction muscles, and wants me to see he’s improving. So I nod and make affirming noises at the proper intervals. But really, I just want to get home, because otherwise I am going to do something ridiculous like grab his hand.

 _My body hurts  
My body hurts  
You leave the room  
And just for a second,  
The silence is like a blessing_

I don’t know if I can go on like this; it’s impossible. He’s away for a few moments and I sigh with relief, in the same moment as I begin to pine for him. It’s as if I have become part golden retriever, ready to whine and drool until he returns.

Agh!  I cannot live like this. I was afraid it was a mistake to share the flat, but I never imagined it would go like this. When he is near me I can't think, and when he is away I feel this acidic longing, it nearly burns in a chemical way, a sour trail right through the center of me. I put my head in my hands.

 _Lovers kiss  
Lovers whisper  
Beaming and grinning  
In the underground  
In the underground  
This is not what I expected_

I’m reliving our ride home on the tube. There were these lovers who could not keep their hands (lips, tongues, limbs) off of each other, and how it made me aware of every fine hair on every inch of my skin, particularly those areas in closest proximity to John. How our thighs just touched, separated by two layers of fabric. How the jostling of the train rocked our shoulders together.

And there was nowhere to look, for I could not bear to watch them, but if I looked at John I was certain my face would somehow betray me. I kept my hands busy fiddling with my phone, pretending to read and send texts, and fortunately he didn’t ask me what it was about. I chased away the unbidden fantasy of him falling asleep, head lolling onto my shoulder.

At last we arrived at Baker Street station. I strode quickly, aware I was forcing him to walk uncomfortable fast for his shorter and sometime compromised leg. I couldn’t help it. Maybe if he was angry with me I would snap out of this ridiculous... affliction.

 _The rhythm between us  
Trembles  
Snatching circles  
Alone with you  
The heat comes from your eyes  
And the soft voice  
Falls  
Out the sky_

“Sherlock, are you alright?”

His voice startles me out of my reverie. I’ve been pressing my hands into my eyes, and when I look up they won't focus.  I see his face as a blur, but also soft with concern. I feel my heart pounding, and it echoes from his chest to mine and back again, like the rhythm of a train moving through the night.

Time is like honey; golden and attenuated, and I feel my heart/breath echo your heart/breath and I don’t know how long I have been staring at your beautiful kind face...

“Sherlock! Can you hear me?”

Now your hand is touching my face, and you are sinking down to sit on the coffee table, level with my eyes, warmth pouring from you, and your voice feels like you are touching me. What could this be but a dream? Yet I know it is not.

“Let me get you some water. “

Don’t go. My hand moves to grasp your wrist. “Please don’t go.” This time I hear myself say it aloud. “Don’t ever go, John. You mustn’t ever go.”

And I lean forward, letting my forehead rest against his, and feel his pulse, his skin.  John lifts his head from mine, and the coolness that follows burns where he touched me, and I lean to follow him, and meet something, soft, soft.

Lips! pressing my hairline, my brow, then brushing, tickling as he says “I’m not going anywhere, Sherlock.”

He brushes my hair back from my face. “But I am going to get you to bed. Come on.”

 _Warm skin  
Close your eyes  
Eyes behind glass  
More skin  
Close your eyes  
And the sky turns red  
And the rails slip beneath us_  


**fin**  


  



End file.
